Google and Inc. Magazine sponsored “The future of digital marketing: strategies you need to succeed,” on December 5, 2014 at the Inc. headquarters located in the World Trade Center. Inc. senior writer Christine Lagorio-Chafkin interviewed David Sable about his experiences in marketing and business.

David Sable is a longtime advertising executive who sees digital as a way to enhance our lives, not supplant them.

“Digital is everything, but not everything is digital,” is Sable’s mantra. While his crystal ball on the future of marketing is admittedly “cloudy,” he is clear that digital puts an increased importance on making live experiences better.

Contrary to his titled talk, Sable didn’t come to spew strategies. You can look to his blog for specifics. Sable is the Global CEO of Young & Rubicam, an entrepreneur and investor that has been in the marketing industry since the 70s. He thinks the ad world was late to innovate with technology, but they’re trying to make up for it now – for better or for worse.

Sable has the knowledge of an advertising historian and talks about today’s digital revolution through the lens of an ad exec that has seen it all. He debunked digital hype and reminded the audience that it is not all about what’s on our phones, even though it seems like it is.

2014 was the year of “people beginning to understand that we live in the real world,” he said. Sable believes the biggest mistake is in thinking the experience should be on the phone. Instead it should be about creating an easy way to take that experience offline.

“Analysts 10 to 15 years ago said retail was going to die,” Sable said, quipping that analysts are always wrong. “They said there’d be no more restaurants or movies. We’d do nothing that required us to leave our home.”

This year’s most highly valued digital startups are not loved, downloaded and discussed just for their digital interface, but more for their concept, which encourages us to act contrary to analysts’ predictions.

Sable used startup glasses company Warby Parker as an example of a company that truly combines real and digital. They started solely online. Their business model involves sending users five pairs of glasses to customers to try on, an idea that came from customers’ requests to see and try on the product.

“They thought, ‘Wow look at the experience they have when they try glasses on with friends around,” Sable said. That’s not new, he said. Humans have an innate desire for in-person, tactile and social experiences.

Sable said he predicted Warby Parker would open stores because they would face inventory shortages. Sure enough, they opened their retail space in 2013 and have opened more this year, for that reason. These physical stores also help with marketing, reinforcing the brand and adding to the overall experience.

Even though we’re in the year of the face to face, Sable said it doesn’t mean that digital marketing is a bad thing.

“It’s awesome,” he said. “It means we need to think about marketing in a bigger sense. How does digital impact what they do?”

Companies have come to Sable with misguided interpretations of what an Internet presence does. He’s heard from Fortune 500 companies, “We’re on YouTube,” “We need to get on Facebook,” or, better yet, “Make me a viral.”

Being on social media because it’s newish does not a company innovative, he said. It isn’t just about getting on social, but how you make an impact there.

Elay Cohen, the former Senior Vice President of Sales Productivity at salesforce.com, shared his proven communication-based sales techniques at an AlleyBoost class on Tuesday, October 28 at Mercy College.

The entrepreneur and author urges companies to bring humanity back into sales – internally and externally. Cohen injected this personal, relationship-focused attitude toward sales into the culture of salesforce.com, which grew from $500 million to $3 billion in revenues while he was there.

“People would ask how we hit our numbers so fast,” Cohen said. “It has to come from the heart and soul of the company.”

Cohen’s sales philosophy comes from his experience learning sales from his father, a furniture storeowner, selling products door-to-door, and working in sales at various companies, including salesforce.com. He wrote a book called Saleshood and started a SaaS sales-solution startup with the same name. Founded less than two years ago, the company is already breaking even without any VC funding. Cohen said they are starting with a limited amount of customers so they can get the product right before they scale.

Salesforce

At salesforce Cohen created an environment where the entire team shared a single sales vision, which encouraged both results and relationship building with customers. When salesforce started in 1999, Microsoft and Oracle were competitors in the space. Sales reps met with customers, told them how salesforce could solve their pain faster and for less money than the bigger companies. Salesforce surprised the big names by expanding rapidly.

The company is known for its boot-camp training for new employees. The sales team continues to communicate with weekly and monthly meetings where they share success stories and allow for peer-to-peer learning.